Aftermath
by metaphorically-blue
Summary: [oneshot][Luna] She can't sleep in the dark. [nothing leaves without echoes]


Warning/Spoiler: Read DH. (Luna may seem semi-sort of OOC, but she's traumatized. Even Luna can't always be a little out of it when she's traumatized. And I did try. Somewhat.) There's a smidgen of Neville/Luna, but it's not like I can write Luna without it. Because I can't.

Disclaimer: If I were a billionaire, I wouldn't write fanfic.

Aftermath

_i. nyctophobia_

She can't sleep when the lights are out.

It wasn't always like this. When she was young—where nightmares were only figments of imagination, stemming from things you knew weren't true—she could sleep till noon, and only a bucket of ice cold water dumped on her head could wake her up. Darkness was a thing of wonder, of stillness and mystery, and she reveled in it, turning out the lights at night and dancing in the cool, ink-colored black.

But now she knows what the dark is—something unfathomable, cold and sinister and unforgiving, where truth and hope and all those beautiful, beautiful things are hidden away, tucked out of sight (out of mind). She knows its true nature.

And she hates it. She hates the dark, hates and fears it with all her power.

She cannot fall asleep when the lights are out in her bedroom, for even the light of the moon falling through her window isn't enough to quell her nightmares. All the lamps in her room must be lit before she can even begin to doze off, because that light _must be there_.

For the absence of light is darkness, and she can't sleep with darkness.

Because darkness makes her think of a dank, dark cellar, where things are quiet and she feels frail and useless, because she can't get out, she can't get up and leave and the inky nothing smothers her until there is no use to fighting, because there is nothing there but cold, cold black.

Her father worries, for often her need for light results in insomnia, and days without sleep.

But she doesn't care, even when she falls asleep at the dinner table and jerks awake again a few seconds later.

Exhaustion is a small price to pay to forget the darkness.

_ii. autophobia_

She hates being alone.

She craves the company of others, be it animal, human, or even a teddy bear. She buys things, toys or stuffed animals, and as long as they have a face, she names them and takes them home. As long as it is something to talk to, something that will somehow seem to respond and be alive, she's all right.

But when no one is there, she trembles. Her control, her resolve, her _everything_ fails. All her careful walls crumble, and she's back in the corner, shivering and thinking about anything but her situation and it doesn't work, because she's all too aware of how very alone she is.

She didn't speak to the old man very much. To wake him when he was finally in blissful unconsciousness would be cruelty, and to speak while he slept would seem strange and odd and it just wasn't the same as talking to someone who would listen.

When the two boys finally came and she left that desolate place, she felt as if her vocal cords had worn away from lack of use.

And now, her throat hurts when she talks, despite all the teas and potions and spells she is given to heal it, and her mouth is chapped and incredibly sore. But she continues to speak as much as she can, because she cannot stand being alone, being silent. She sings, she mumbles and mutters, she rambles when only a short sentence would do, but she continues on, because this gift of talk is so precious that she just has to use it.

When Ginny comes by, she worries about the condition of her throat as she coughs and stumbles over syllables and stabs at scratchy conversation with her best friend.

But no matter how badly her raw throat hurts, she will not give up the talking, the singing, the speaking.

Pain doesn't matter when compared to being alone.

_iii. musophobia_

She can't be near rats.

Once, she didn't care if there was a rat in the house. The creatures were clever, able to survive, and her father had told her if a rat bit her, she would gain some of their ingenuity. A rat could fall and still be standing. She fed the creatures, gave them bread and cheese, and didn't chase them away when she was cleaning the pantry.

Now, they repulse her. Everything about them, from the scaly tail to the pointed nose makes her shudder. Beady eyes cause her to double take, with a glance to ensure that no, that man is not there, staring at her. A squeak makes her jump, sometimes even scream. People wonder why she's so aware of them, why someone like her, who feels affection for every living thing no matter how disgusting, can become so upset over a rodent.

And she cannot explain why.

No one else was there when that man came and gave her food, taunting her, acting like his Animagus form. No one else can comprehend the absolute disgust, contempt, and fear she felt for a man who squeaked, with beady eyes and a pointed nose who had a silver hand. She hated him and the way he looked, talked, acted, _was_. His whole being repulsed her.

So she beats away the creatures, and shrieks when she sees one taking food. Despite her father's words, she will not be moved on the subject. The rodents must leave.

Only one person empathizes even a little, and when she sees Ron, congratulating him on his engagement and having dinner, he worries, saying that it isn't natural for a fear to run that deep.

But it isn't a fear, and she continues to hate and loathe those—those _things_.

She cannot ever abide a rat.

_iv. aichmophobia_

She won't touch nails.

One uses nails as a child for a lot of things. Building tree-forts, helping repair machinery, practicing carpentry and fixing houses. They are normal items, and there is nothing special about a rusty nail, especially to a witch or wizard. Normally, such people won't even touch such an auspicious object.

When she sees nails, she flinches. Straight, bent, rusty, silver smooth—it doesn't matter. The sharp objects are no longer tolerable, and she is no longer asked to assist in repairing her father's printing press (he insists on doing it manually, maintaining his position that magical repair will damage his truth, his justice, and his writing in ways unfathomable to a teenage daughter, even one as open-minded as she).

For nails take her back to the only option of escape from a cellar in a manor, where the only light was the full moon (and that was sometimes, if ever) and where hope in general was in short supply. Every time she sees one, she remembers trying to saw through ropes and cutting herself on a rusty point as she attempted to free up her and her cell-mate's movements.

Nails represent the thin lines of blood as she tried and tried and tried to get free from her bonds, to make it out, to still hope, and watch as everything was crushed once again by the Death Eaters holding her. Nails are the things that hammered through her will until she only had scraps of it left.

She will not build with something like that.

Hermione worries when she sees her hold one like it was something dirty, something that should not be spoken of, a thing as horrible as the creatures talked about in her father's magazines. The girl (woman, really) also remembers thin lines of blood from that place, but she still tries to get her to try and build.

But she can't touch a thing like that.

There are spells she can perform to keep from using nails.

_v. chromophobia_

She cannot wear the color grey.

Grey is not a special color. It's drab, not very noticeable, a color you would wear to blend into the wall. It's a background shade, something put on t-shirts and shoes to underline the colorful designs. It is not beautiful, and it is not ugly. It's just there.

She cannot wear it.

The shade makes her eyes widen and her throat catch. When she goes with Hermione and Ginny, when they try to convince her to wear a shirt or a scarf of that color, telling her that it would be gorgeous with her eyes, she shakes her head. No matter how beautiful the item is; she can barely stand to look at it, even more so to wear it or even touch it. There is no gray in her room, her wardrobe, or anywhere that she frequents.

Grey was the color of that basement. It was monotonous, overwhelming, even for a neutral color. She saw it everywhere she turned, and she hated it. She wished so badly for something beautiful, something colorful and bright and patterned and sparkly and some color that _was not grey_.

But the shade never seemed to go away, and even as she slept, she still saw it, the first color to appear when she pressed her eyelids shut. Even Hogwarts was painful to look at, for the color was repeated over and over amongst the halls and the common room and everywhere she could see, almost a dead match for the walls of that cellar.

Harry worries for her, because he always feels guilty for things that aren't his fault, and when he watches her shudder as she throws out the old dingy dress she wore to some party at a time that seems to be ages ago, he asks if she's all right.

But she _is_ all right, no matter how many times her throat catches whenever she sees that color.

It's easy, to not wear grey.

_vi. hormephobia_

She's pretty sure that nobody can empathize.

Of course, they all have their own conditions, their own fears.

For instance, she knows how her father hates venturing into the Department of Mysteries when called to do so, how he hates seeing the rooms where they experiment on _anything_. She's aware of how Ginny couldn't write with a quill her second year without shuddering and turning away from her paper.

She also knows how Ron can't look at spiders, and how he has to find someone to squash the things for him. She knows how Hermione can't touch knives, how she has to charm them when she wants to cut up vegetables or meat for dinner. She knows how Harry will avoid lockets like the plague, how he's totally incapable of even touching them and never even ventures into the depths of his girlfriend's jewelry box.

She knows all of these things, these fears that they don't tell anyone, and she's still sure that none of them are as bad as her.

After all, she has to sleep with the light on, and keep talking until it's almost like she's crazy (well, more so than usual) or else feel like she's totally alone. None of them absolutely have to beat away the rats in their house, or try to repair a printing press without touching a single nail. It's not like they have to avoid a simple, stupid _color _or else feel like they're going to choke.

She's sure that none of them feel like they're close to a breakdown.

She crosses her legs as she sits on the couch at Harry and Ginny's engagement party—it's late in the night (or early in the morning, she's not sure) and everyone is still laughing and joking—and she barely notices when someone tall sits down next to her. It takes a stab at conversation to bring her back to reality and to the person sitting beside her.

"Luna?"

It's Neville, and she turns her head and smiles a smile that isn't hers as she tries to bring all those broken little shards of thought together, to try and compose herself back into the carefree loopy girl that they all know.

"Hi, Neville."

His gaze is quizzical, questioning, and she feels herself being scrutinized, but not in a bad way—it's the kind that people use when they care.

"Luna… Are you all right?"

And her resolve cracks as she feels something wet slide down her cheek and she barely notices when he puts his arm around her, a comforting gesture that just makes her sob worse.

"…No. No, I'm not."

His hold tightens, and he smiles a little—she can feel it, even if she can't see it.

"It's okay, Luna. You'll be okay." He pauses, and she waits for the words to come.

"You just have to get through the aftermath."

_FIN_

A/N: …This came from everyone saying that Luna is always strong and can get through things, but you know, she's human too. She had to have some sort of trauma from being locked in a basement for three to four months. Then again, it also came from the fact that I love Luna (/Neville). Because she is made of awesome.

(And dividers were the actual phobia names. Heh. Except for the last, which is fear of shock.)

Review. I'll give you one of Luna's bottle-cap necklaces.


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